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Verisign signs .com contract extension, amends cooperative agreement

Company enters into three agreements today, including the .com contract extension.

Verisign (NYSE:VRSN) today signed amended agreements with ICANN and the Department of Commerce (DOC) related to the U.S. government IANA functions transition.

The company signed an amendment to its .com contract with ICANN, extending the term to 2024 and, at least for now, keeping the wholesale price of .com domain names fixed at $7.85. This extends the .com agreement to end at the same time its new Root Zone Maintainer agreement with ICANN expires.

Additionally, it signed Amendment Number 33 to the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and the DOC to remove root zone management from that agreement. Now Verisign’s agreement with ICANN for root zone maintenance will go into effect.

It also signed Amendment Number 34 to the Cooperative Agreement, which effectively approves Verisign’s extension of the .com registry agreement with ICANN. The amendment also says that “the DOC retains the right to conduct a public interest review for the sole purpose of determining whether the DOC will extend the term of the Cooperative Agreement before it expires on November 30, 2018.”

The next potential price change comes in 2018 when the Department of Commerce and Verisign work out the Cooperative Agreement. Should they decide on a change to pricing, ICANN would need to work with Verisign to update the .com contract.

The contract extension does include a $7.85 price cap. However, there’s a subsequent negotiation in 2018 between the US government and Verisign about the Cooperative Agreement. The Cooperative Agreement is actually what dictates the ICANN contract to have the $7.85 price. (You might recall that it was the USG that stepped in last time and forced the parties to keep the price at $7.85 after Verisign and ICANN negotiated price increases.) So, it’s possible that they will agree to some sort of price increase at that time, and then the contract with ICANN will have to be amended. I’m hopeful this won’t happen, but there is definitely an opportunity for Verisign to make its case in 2018.